Chapter 32
Emily ran her gaze over the title of the article.
Hollywood Sweetheart Set for a Quiet Life Far from the Spotlight.
It was published. The words were out there for the world to see, and it made everything feel even more…real.
The reporter had quoted her half a dozen times, and she’d told Emily’s story so well. She’d even included her “plans” to move somewhere quiet, like perhaps a small French town.
The last part, of course, was a lie. Something she was pretty sure the reporter knew. She’d expected the woman to at least question her on it during the interview. Question where Ryan fell in that decision, and if he’d be moving with her.
She hadn’t. Nor had she mentioned the more likely scenario of remaining in Deep River.
Because she was a good reporter…unlike Shaun.
Her lips twitched at the next article. Or more accurately, photos. Of Preston doing photo ops. He’d been medevacked to a larger hospital in Billings for more specialized care. After being there for a week, he’d finally been discharged, and by the look of it, was loving the sympathy.
Thank God he was okay.
“I heard we have a new resident in Deep River.”
Emily lowered her phone to her lap as Polly dropped to the couch beside her, holding out a blue cocktail with a lychee on a stick.
They sat in Polly’s living room, the women inside while the guys stood around the grill in the backyard. It was a Sunday. Two weeks had passed since Roscoe was shot. And she was finally starting to feel herself again.
Emily took the glass from Polly’s outstretched hand. “Well, if the media is printing that I’m stepping away from the spotlight, then it must be true.”
“I’m so happy you’re staying,” Raven said from the recliner. “But I’m so going to miss seeing you in movies.”
Maggie nodded. “There’s something magical about the way you bring a story to life.”
“Thank you.” She lifted a shoulder. “Hopefully I can bring some magic to Deep River. Maybe on a stage right here in town.”
Nora’s brows shot up. “You’re doing shows in Deep River?”
“I want to start my own theater company here. I want to put on plays and run acting classes. I was actually going to talk to you, Raven, about using the community center.”
“Abso-freaking-lutely! But that’s going to be a big change. This town won’t be too small for you?”
At that moment, the back door opened and the guys walked in. Ethan, then Joel. Connor and Zac. And last, Ryan. His eyes went straight to her. They darkened before softening, the familiar black flecks making her heart beat a bit faster.
“Not too small.” She looked back to the women. “Doing work I love, surrounded by people who care about me… I think this is my biggest chapter yet.”
The faces of the women around her softened.
Polly touched her thigh. “I love that.”
A knock sounded at the door, and Emily felt the energy in the kitchen shift. The guys went from relaxed to radiating with tense, alert energy. After the last few months they’d had, she didn’t blame them.
Joel moved to the door.
Emily could only see him, not the person on the other side. He sounded surprised when he said, “Hi.” Then looked straight at Emily, frowning. “It’s your mom.”
She straightened. Her mother was here? Yes, she said she’d visit Emily before leaving. She was still in Deep River because doctors had warned her not to fly for a couple of weeks. But Emily had assumed she’d call first. Arrange a time and a place. How had she even known how to find her?
She stood, and Ryan joined her. He’d been doing that a lot these last few weeks. Appearing by her side the second she tried to put weight on her leg.
Without a word, his arm curved around her waist, taking some of her weight as they crossed to the door.
She stopped in front of her mother. “Hi, Mom.”
Melanie Prior looked different today. A bit less makeup. Her blonde curls holding a tad less volume.
Her mother offered a small smile. “Hi, Emily. Ryan.”
“Want me to stay with you?” he whispered.
She shook her head. “I’ll be okay.”
He didn’t look like he wanted to leave. But as she stepped outside, he eased the door closed.
She lowered to the top step.
Her mom sat beside her. “How’s the leg?”
“It’s okay. It could have been a lot worse.” She studied her mother’s head, even though there was no sign of injury. “How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
She nodded slowly. “How did you know where I was, Mom?”
“You mentioned you were going to Polly’s house today, and in a town this size, it wasn’t hard to get an address.”
“You could have just asked me.”
“I was going to text, but I was at The Pancake Bar and mentioned it to Basil. He gave it to me.”
Her lips twitched. Not only because her mother had been at The Pancake Bar, a place she hadn’t stopped complaining about since arriving in town, but because she was on a first-name basis with the owner.
A crease formed between her mother’s brows as she looked out at the road. “You may not believe this but…I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“A lot of things. I never really had the courage to go after the career I wanted. I told myself it was because I got pregnant with you, but that was a lie. I didn’t die after I had a baby.
Yes, I had to work to support us, and time constraints made it harder.
But mostly I stopped trying. I think I didn’t want to fail.
But if you failed, that felt…easier to accept.
So I put everything I wanted on your shoulders.
” Her mother looked at her. “It was wrong. I’ve done a lot of wrong things as your mother, particularly where Ryan is concerned. And I’m sorry for that too.”
“I did want it when I was younger. You used to talk about acting like it was the closest thing to magic. You’d get this look on your face, like even just talking about it took you somewhere else.
I used to watch you and think, whatever that is, I want it.
Even when I was too young to understand it.
” She glanced down at her interlaced fingers in her lap.
“But then I grew up. I changed. And I started to want something different.”
“You wanted Ryan.”
“Mom—”
“That’s okay. It wasn’t just about Ryan himself.
I know that now. It was about the life you wanted to build with him.
You wanted love and a family and relationships that you never found in the world of acting.
I saw that. But I still told myself that if you chose him, it would be fleeting, and you’d regret giving up a potentially huge career for a man.
I told myself everything I did was for you. ”
Emily swallowed, watching regret settle into her mother’s expression. “I believe you. Thank you for saying it out loud.”
Her mother nodded.
“What are you going to do now?”
Her mother’s chest rose on a deep inhale. “I’m going to go home. Figure out what I want to do with my life. Maybe I’ll use my connections to get a few auditions for parts. Maybe I’ll finally learn who I am, outside of being your mother.”
“That’s a good idea.”
Tears suddenly filled her mother’s eyes. “I do love you, Emily. I’ve always loved you. I’m sorry if I haven’t shown it often enough.”
“I love you too. And I hope that one day we can have a different relationship. A healthier mother and daughter, outside the world of acting, kind.”
Her mother nodded.
They hugged and said their goodbyes. A part of her hoped that she was also saying goodbye to the old version of her mother, to the old relationship they’d had, and starting the journey of creating something new.
Even after her mother left, Emily didn’t get up right away. Instead, she looked at the lawn outside Polly’s home. There were no scarlet-red Indian paintbrushes like at Ryan’s house.
The door behind her opened, and Ryan stepped out and lowered beside her.
His hand went to her leg. “Hey. You okay?”
“I was just thinking about the Indian paintbrushes in your garden.”
“Really?”
“Mm-hmm.” She lifted a shoulder. “When I saw them I…”
“You what?”
“I felt hope. That maybe you’d kept them alive for me, after you bought the house. Maybe you wanted me to come here and see them.”
“You want to know a secret?”
“Always.”
“They weren’t actually there when I bought the house. I planted them. For you. The second I bought the place, I had this vision of what it would look like. And it was always my hope that you would see it. That you’d come back to me.”
The film of tears in Emily’s eyes had Ryan shifting closer. He slipped an arm around her waist. “Hey.”
“We lost so many years.”
He shook his head. “No. We needed those years. You needed a taste of the life you thought you wanted. You needed to live that, to know you wanted this. And I needed to finish out my time in the military. I needed to end up here so that you could find me.”
“What if I never had? Found you?”
“You were always going to find me, Emi. You were written in my stars.”
Her lips curved. “I didn’t know you believed in that stuff.”
“Only with you.”
Then he kissed her. And fuck, it felt good. She felt good.
When they pulled apart, he traced the curve of her lips with his gaze. “I missed that.”
“What?”
“Your smile. Shit, I missed it so much.”
“You might get sick of it, because I have a feeling you’re going to see it a lot in your lifetime.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise. Every day.”
The door behind them opened. Joel stood there, a half-eaten burger in his hand. “Yo, Romeo and Juliet, you guys planning to come back in to eat, or is love the only sustenance you need?”
“Looks like you started without us anyway,” Ryan said.
“A guy’s got to eat. You could have been kissing all day. Am I supposed to starve?”
Emily chuckled. “Come on.”
Inside, everyone was scattered around the kitchen, dining, and living rooms. Some were on the couch, others at the table. Ethan and Zac stood by the counter, filling their plates.
“We’re at a dead end,” Ethan said quietly, as Ryan grabbed a plate from beside them. “I can’t find any more information on the missing women or anything in this town referring to Lotus. I can’t even track down the Connoway family members.”
Emily paused, spoon of salad halfway to her plate. “Are you talking about the family who lived in the old mansion?”
Ethan nodded. “Yeah. Did Ryan tell you about the missing and dead women?”
Emily shook her head as she looked at Ryan.
“In the last twenty-five years, three women have gone missing and two others have wound up dead in the river,” Ryan said quietly. “We think they’re all connected.”
She frowned. “What does the Connoway family have to do with it?”
“Maybe not the family, but the house,” Joel said. “Polly found a burner phone in the floorboards of her shop. It had photos of the house and texts to an unknown person saying she knew what they did.”
“Oh, God.”
“We also learned that something called Lotus is involved,” Ryan added.
“And you said you haven’t been able to find the family?” Emily asked softly.
Ethan shook his head. “No. They left thirty years ago and haven’t been seen since. It makes me think there was foul play. There was a father, mother, a son, and—”
“Two daughters,” Emily finished. “I, um, read one of the girls’ diaries. Or an entry, at least.”
Ryan straightened. “Her diary?”
She cringed. “Yeah. I know. I was being nosy. In her last entry, she wrote about seeing something strange in the sky. A thin white streak of light. Her mother told her it was a shooting star, but she didn’t think it was. She said it moved slower.”
The fuck? “Did she date the entry?”
“Thirty years ago.”
Ryan looked at Ethan and Zac. “Around the time they left.”
“I’ll talk to Ferris,” Ethan said. “See if we can get permission to go in there.”
“Have you talked to the mayor about what he knows about the family?” Emily asked.
Ryan almost laughed. “Yes. A useless conversation. He was just starting out as mayor when they left, so he says he didn’t know them well enough. Just that they were here one day and gone the next. He thinks something spooked them and they hightailed it back to England.”
“But he doesn’t know for sure?” she asked.
“There’s no evidence.” He slipped an arm around her waist and kissed her cheek. “Let’s finish getting our food. This topic is too heavy for a party.”
Nora came to stand beside Zac and slapped a hand on his back. “Hey, colleague.”
Zac frowned. “Colleague?”
“I heard we’re working together.”
At Zac’s confused expression, Ryan cleared his throat. “Nora got a job at the local high school.”
“The same school where I hear you’re offering some outdoor safety and awareness sessions.” Nora’s grin widened. “Survival skills, emergency basics. Is that right?”
“That’s right. On Tuesdays and Thursdays.” Zac frowned. “You’ll be there?”
“Well, not in your sessions. I’ll be in my office with kids, but we may run into each other in the hall.” She picked up a carrot and bit into it. “That a problem?”
“No.”
This time, Ryan frowned. Because that answer came really fucking fast. Was it a problem?
Why the hell would it be?
Zac cleared his throat. “I’m going in tomorrow to talk to Adam about the sessions. He’s the gym teacher. It’s his classes I’m taking.”
“Well, it might be your lucky day, because Adam’s office is right next to mine. We might run into each other.” She winked before grabbing a burger and heading back to the couch.
As Nora walked away, something flickered over Zac’s face. Something Ryan had no idea how to interpret.
What was he missing?
Zac suddenly headed for the door. “I’m going to check the grill.”
When the door closed behind him, Ryan turned to Emily. “Did you find anything strange about Zac just now? Or am I being an idiot?”
A small smile curved her lips. “Maybe he has a thing for your sister.”
“A thing?”
“Maybe he likes her.”
Ryan shook his head. “No. He would have said something if that was the case.”
“Are you sure?”
No. He’d just never thought about, or even considered, one of his best friends dating his sister.
Emily touched his chest. “There was a time when I had a crush on you.”
“Really?”
“Mm-hmm. That lasted about two-point-five seconds.”
“That’s a short-lived crush.”
“Well, those feelings turned into something deeper real fast.”
He slipped an arm around her waist. “Deeper sounds good. I like that.”
“I like you.”
He lowered his mouth to hover over hers. “I love you.” Then he kissed her. Deeply. Lovingly. Thoroughly.